This eclectic blog consists of posts covering, but not limited to: the coddling of bankers and multinational corporations by both political parties; the unholy alliance of an awakened China and unscrupulous U.S. businessmen; despotic North Korea, now in its third avaricious generation; the pernicious threats of historically-blind Russian nationalists and dogmatic Islamist barbarians; and historically-based, often satirical fiction. I should have named this blog "Walter Mitty lives for a day."

Saturday, May 4, 2013

FICTION: The British Prime Minister's last day in office

"Madame Prime Minister, is there one event which stands out in your mind in terms of importance for triggering the world's rapid decline over the past ten years?" queried Elizabeth Darcy, chief foreign affairs correspondent for The Australian Journal.

"The two big initial events probably were China's anti-satellite work in space
and Norway's acceptance of sharia as equal to established law," replied British Prime Minister Persnickety Naiflass. "However, I would have to add America's infatuation with unfettered capitalism."

"As you remember, China launched anti-satellite missiles into space. Every country which had satellites in space loudly complained, because China had already destroyed a satellite in space, creating an enormous cloud of debris. China tested its orbiting missiles twice. The first time, one of their spent boosters was hit, creating yet another large debris cloud. But it was the second test which killed the orbital golden goose. The missile misfired and headed directly for the International Space Station, which just happened to be in the final minutes of the docking of a regular resupply mission via an autonomous spacecraft. The missile ripped all of the ISS modules apart, with the remnants then spinning wildly in space, not to mention that all of the astronauts were killed. We saw a cascade of collisions, first one satellite, then a spent booster, then another satellite, and so on -- the scientific term for this is Kessler Syndrome -- with the ISS and Envisat, the largest civilian Earth observation satellite ever launched into space, being the largest single contributors of debris. The owners of active satellites quickly used all of their available maneuvering fuel in an unsuccessful attempt to avoid the orbital mayhem. Within two weeks, the commonly used orbits looked like the aftermath of one of those American demolition derby races. Iridium and other communications satellites, along with the James Webb Space Telescope and the KH-12s, are now shiny space junk. It is almost impossible to put a satellite into a useful orbit now. Don't forget that all manned spacecraft have used low Earth orbits, except for the moon-bound Apollo ones. It will take decades of expensive cleanup to make space safe again," added Naiflass.

"We had become very dependent on satellites. Satellite phones stopped working, so people out of sight of cellular towers are now incommunicado. GPS satellites traveled in medium Earth orbits, so they were safe for a time, but now most of them have since been trashed so most GPS devices no longer function. The U.S. military is severely hampered by this, as every single vehicle, aircraft, ship, and soldier is dependent upon receiving accurate GPS data. The Russians were not very happy about their version of GPS, GLONASS, being shredded," continued Naiflass.

"The geostationary weather satellites still function because their orbits were too high for the space junk, but polar orbiting weather satellites were quickly trashed, with the latter being much more useful because of their proximity to Earth. America was not much affected by this, given their GOES satellites, but their DMSP satellites were destroyed, causing some problems for their military. The Russians have their Elektro-L, the Japanese have their MTSAT, the Indians have their INSAT, and we here in Europe have Meteosat, but some parts of the world have old-fashioned weather -- unpredictable," added Naiflass.

"We lost the operational control of all drones: Predator, Reaper, Sentinel, Global Hawk, and the new ones which were just coming online after being developed in Nevada. The Americans had become comfortable in their arrangement of stationing pilots there, but that required satellite links. We really don't know what Islamists are doing in many countries now," continued Naiflass.

"But that was only the beginning of the trouble with China," opined Naiflass.

"Yes, many Norwegians were so ashamed of Beavis' actions that they completely swung to the other extreme," answered Naiflass. "Some Norwegian woman started voluntarily wearing a headscarf. Many of the people attacked on Utøya Island -- the Labour Party youth wing, who were already the most liberal in the country -- became Muslims or married them and were outspoken in their quest to embrace Islam to prove that they were not like Beavis. When these people became old enough to run for office, they did so en masse, especially given Norway's tradition of entering government at an early age. Many of them used what happened to them for their own political gain, exploiting people's sympathy to gain office. They not only removed all restrictions on immigration for Muslims, they created an affirmative action scheme to bring in as many as possible. And they passed legislation to make sharia equal to established law."

"Norway made a grievous error in not executing Beavis. It should have found a way to do it, perhaps as a military criminal. His incarceration in that comfy cell with his own telly and workout equipment made a mockery of the 77 people he killed, as well as the people he maimed or wounded. Norway should have hung him. Norwegians could not find closure in his execution, so they found it another way," continued Naiflass.

"Norway had another opportunity to stop its Islamic folly when that Norwegian woman was arrested in Dubai after reporting her rape. As you probably remember, she was then accused of having sex outside of marriage, a crime in Islamic countries. According to the Koran, a woman's testimony is only slightly more believable than that of a farm animal, so her statement was ignored. She was originally sent to prison, but her government had not yet turned Islamic, so it complained, causing Dubai to eventually release her," declared Naiflass.

"Do you think the events of the past decade constitute the Third World War or are they different than that?" queried Darcy.

"WWI and WWII were essentially wars between two sides, albeit with many players around the world. Most people believed that WWIII, if it ever came, would be largely the same. No, the past decade was a bar fight. World leaders never quite knew which side to choose. I am embarrassed to say that Britain and some other countries chose rather badly," continued Naiflass.

"But in our defense, things were so different than the world to which we had grown accustomed. The U.S. had been the leader of the free world since WWII. When it stopped playing that role, many of us hoped that China would assume that mantle. But no, China only pursued its own selfish interests, with many countries being cut adrift," opined Naiflass.

"North America used to be the industrial and economic powerhouse of the world. Now, only my country remains as a serious contender in North America. In your view, what were the causes for the USA's downfall?" asked Munro.

"Churchill wrote a series of books on WWII. If I had time left, I would devote an entire volume to the demise of the U.S.," announced Naiflass.

"The States have had an unbroken string of mediocre-at-best presidents. Oral Hardcraft could barely keep his pants on and was better suited to being president of Italy. He brought in a gang of Wall Street swindlers to man the Treasury Department, a legacy which haunts us even today. Smirk Mesopotamia and Jive Golfhound might as well have been twin reincarnations of Warren Harding, creating a landslide of corruption which buried the country, giving trillions to their friends in corporations and banks, with Golfhound using most of Hardcraft's Wall Street swindlers in his Cabinet. Mesopotamia set the record for days spent on vacation, but Golfhound and his wife, Marie Antoinette, spent more tax dollars on their vacations to Hawaii, Spain, Vail, the Bahamas, Martha's Vineyard, and many other locations, especially on golf and shopping junkets, than all previous presidents combined. As a side-note, Golfhound's presidential library is the first to feature a fully-functional basketball court. The current president, Craven Chatepelose, the first female president, appears to be content simply being president," continued Naiflass.

"During the two years before Chatepelose's first term, the Republicans won both the House and Senate for two years. They went on a rampage, slashing taxes and creating a mountain of debt as a result. They repealed the laws preventing medical insurance companies from discriminating against people with preexisting conditions, causing millions of Americans to be denied medical insurance, with many of those people ending up in bankruptcy, homeless, or dead because they were then charged full retail price for their medical care. They sanctioned the building of the F-48, a fighter which was promised to be the best aircraft the world would see for the next 20 years. They let loose the hounds of fracking, with drilling taking place in every state," added Naiflass.

"Then with the election of Chatepelose, the Democrats regained control of the Senate by a comfortable margin, with the Republicans keeping the House. Since the Democrats would not support the policies of the previous two years, a form of trench warfare invaded Washington, with neither side being able to advance any legislation. But since tax cuts had drastically diminished the national coffers, the debt began to rise precipitously. The only thing the two parties could agree on was keeping the government going by continuing to borrow money from China," continued Naiflass.

"But then the curtain rose on the second act of China's tragedy," suggested Darcy.

"Nicely put," answered Naiflass. "Yes, the hostility between China and Japan finally reached its crest over the Diaoyu / Senkaku islands, depending upon which country's language one wishes to use. Both countries had been engaged in a low-grade war over those and other islands for a good number of years. Many ships had collided in games of chicken and intimidation, with a few sinking, but the damage was always so minimal that all sailors were able to escape with their lives. Then China upped the ante with its second aircraft carrier, the Shuangdao, which was sent to the islands to guard the landing force which China planned to use to occupy the islands. Japan had warned China that landings would not be tolerated. Japan pulled the trigger with multiple torpedoes launched toward the carrier. The carrier sank quickly with the loss of around 5000 sailors."

"My colleagues in China at that time told us that the average Chinese person went ballistic over the sinking and demanded that the government retaliate in a big way," added Munro.

"Interesting choice of words -- 'ballistic' -- given what happened later. China began planning a cyber-attack using the code from Stuxnet and Flame, but took it one step farther. As you might remember, those cyber-attacks against Iran were specifically targeted against its nuclear centrifuges. Yes, there was a handful of other computers which were hit, but for the most part it was only centrifuges which were affected. This time, China was targeting everything and anything Japanese: nuclear power generating plants, dams and their associated hydroelectric generation facilities, factories of all sorts, banks, military command and control, government institutions, you name it, they targeted it. To paraphrase the former leader of Pakistan, China was going to cyber-bomb Japan back into the stone age," continued Naiflass.

"Australians were glued to their televisions, PC monitors, and smartphones as we watched this disaster porn. We were more interested than most countries because fallout from a local nuclear war, if it came to that, might cause the movie On The Beach to come true," added Darcy.

"We here in Britain started called it 'The Phony Asian War' in comparison to the lack of hostilities between Nazi Germany and Britain after the invasion of Poland. We were as surprised as anyone when China finally unleashed its revenge. They had emailed untold numbers of emails containing malware to specifically targeted individuals, employing a technique known as spear phishing, with these emails appearing to do nothing for a few months, so Japanese anti-virus protection did not sound the alarm. Chinese crackers had placed malware on web sites Japanese targets were known to frequent, in the maneuver known as a watering hole attack. And the few spies China had in Japan were able to insert USB flash drives containing malware directly into PCs controlling infrastructure in a manner reminiscent of the Stuxnet attacks," continued Naiflass.

"All of a sudden, every Japanese nuclear power plant suffered severe problems. In some cases, the workers were able to shut the reactor down without any release of radiation. But in about half the Japanese reactors -- and keep in mind that Japan obtained between one-fourth and one-third of its electricity from nuclear reactors before the war -- there was some kind of meltdown and/or vessel breach. In more than a few, the highly ironic China Syndrome occurred, with the core melting through the reactor floor. There were many, many Fukushima-style disasters happening at once. Millions of Japanese were forced to move to other parts of the islands. Millions lost their jobs and homes," continued Naiflass.

"Why didn't the USA retaliate as its defense treaty with Japan obligated it to do?" asked Munro.

"Japan was not exactly blameless, as it killed 5000 Chinese sailors. Also, I learned through the back channels that China warned the U.S. that it would consider any attack on the behalf of Japan as a clear declaration of total war. President Chatepelose was frozen with indecision, panic-stricken she would go down in history as the one responsible for initiating a nuclear exchange. And, of course, China was America's banker and supplier of the vast majority of its goods, as the U.S. had long ago outsourced most of its manufacturing base to China, India, and other countries," continued Naiflass.

"Given Japan's response to the cyber-attack, don't you think President Chatepelose's non-response was the correct move?" countered Darcy.

"Japan's response was downright shocking, considering that it had been devastated by two atomic bombs at the end of WWII. It launched a weapon many of us would never have guessed it had, a hydrogen bomb specifically designed for minimum fallout and maximum EMP. We were ignorant of this weapon largely because of China's indirect destruction of all spy satellites," continued Naiflass.

"Did Japan minimize the fallout because of the possibility of the cloud traveling to Japan?" asked Munro. "And when you refer to EMP, you mean electromagnetic pulse, right?"

"Yes and yes. Japan did not care if fallout rained down on China, but Japan's islands are in the path of normal winds blowing from China. And EMP is a burst of electromagnetic radiation resulting from a nuclear blast which usually destroys electronic and electrical equipment," continued Naiflass.

"The device was lit off somewhere around Nanyang as an air burst. The intent of it was to fry just about every electronic device within sight and I mean that literally. If someone could see the explosion, any device in the area was pretty much guaranteed to be converted to so much junk. Nuclear physics is not my strong suit so I cannot tell you the altitude of the blast, but I would think it was somewhere between 50 and 100 km. If it had been much higher, the radiation could have destroyed many satellites in low Earth orbit similar to how the U.S. destroyed satellites in July 1962 with its 'Starfish Prime' nuclear blast at 400 km above the Johnston Atoll -- if the Chinese had not already destroyed them, of course. Shanghai, Chongqing, and many other cities were affected. Factories immediately stopped operations. Hydroelectric plants ceased to function. Warehouses full of electronic products destined for the West were now full of products only useful for recycling. China lost trillions of dollars in a flash," continued Naiflass.

"And all of a sudden, Germany is back to being the world's largest exporter," mused Naiflass.

"The world held its breath for a few days, hoping that another nuclear shoe would not drop. Luckily, that was the end of the atomic portion of the war, but China had one more card up its sleeve. Japanese Prime Minister Bushido had rearmed Japan with lots of expensive new ships and aircraft, but China had a number of missile cruisers which had been at sea during the EMP attack. All of these ships fired a massive salvo at every ship, airfield, and command and control center Japan had, as well as every dam and electrical generation plant using coal or oil. Thousands of missiles were launched and they all struck home because Japan's defensive machinery was still out-of-order due to the cyber-attack. Not only did Japan lose many lives in the floods following the burst dams, but given that its nuclear power plants were all closed, it lost all of its hydroelectric capacity as well. Not to mention the water which could no longer be used for drinking, farming, or any other purpose. Bushido now ruled over a nation with little remaining electrical generation capability, tens of millions of refugees, a severe water shortage, virtually no military capability, and a host of other problems. Of course, Japanese voters sent him scurrying like the rat he was," added Naiflass.

"But this left China with only nuclear missiles aboard its ballistic missile submarines for the most part. It no longer had much of a conventional navy. Many of its ships still sailed, but the stores of missiles for them no longer existed," continued Naiflass.

"All things considered, Japan had been very lucky. Many people in the Chinese government wanted to level Japan using nuclear weapons. They considered this payback for the way Japan treated China during WWII," added Naiflass.

"Then the other countries in the South China Sea began a conventional war against China," declared Darcy.

"I would not describe it in that manner," countered Naiflass. "The countries China had been bullying over fish, oil, and natural gas reserves in the region began to reassert their lawful rights in the region. China could no longer harass them with its navy. Singapore, the Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan, India, and other countries with interests in the South China Sea created a mutual defense league. Together they forced China to accept international borders. No longer would China be able to exercise fish-oil-and-gas gunboat diplomacy where Filipino fishermen would be forced to surrender their local fishing grounds. If there was any good news from China's misfortune, it was that the other countries were finally able to require that any resource exploration in the South China Sea would first be negotiated by all local parties."

"And at the risk of making a sick joke, the dangerous air pollution in China is much better now," opined Naiflass.

"And speaking of India, the gang rapes of women have really become an epidemic. Tourism has essentially ceased for the entire country, except for the terminally-liberal who just cannot seem to accept that India is a dangerous place for women," added Naiflass.

"What about the Korean Peninsula? Don't you think that the law of unintended consequences was in full force there?" asked Munro.

"Oh, certainly! North Korea first became insolvent when the Soviet Union collapsed, as the USSR had been supporting North Korea with oil, food, and other things. The famines of the 1990s had a lot to do with the loss of Soviet aid. China had also been supplying North Korea with energy and food, but it never supplied enough. China had always used North Korea as a buffer zone against the West. And North Korea used almost all aid to retain the lavish lifestyle of the elite," continued Naiflass.

"North Korea had always been incompetent at farming, largely because it spent the money it needed for tractors on Mercedes Benz automobiles for the elite and all generals at or above divisional level. But then all Chinese oil, gas, food and other aid simply stopped after Japan's nuclear attack. The Kim family tried to keep all food for them, the elite, and the military, but quickly the food ran out so there was none left for the military. The military revolted, with many divisions involved in the mutiny. The Kim family ran to its palatial estate in the forest north of Pyongyang with only their bodyguards to protect them. The military surrounded them, and with food from South Korea, simply started cooking spicy meals, allowing the aroma to waft over the soldiers assigned to bodyguard detail. It was not too long before those soldiers defected, leaving the Kims all alone. Then the military simply allowed the Kims to starve to death, a fitting end for a family which oversaw the deaths of millions via starvation. A few members of the family tried to escape, probably because they feared being killed and eaten by the others, but they were caught and sent back at bayonet-point to the compound to die. This also was ironic because of the way the Kim family had imprisoned and/or executed anyone who tried to leave the fortress of North Korea," added Naiflass.

"The new leaders of North Korea wanted to end the state of war between the two Koreas, but they weren't stupid. They offered to sell their nuclear weapons, stores of plutonium, U.S. currency printing press, and all counterfeit currency for a large amount of money, but the American Tea Party selfishly refused, saying that any such payments would eat into their tax cuts. President Chatepelose devised an equitable solution. Since she was in control of the State Department, she transferred all funds destined for Israel, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Pakistan, Sudan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, and the West Bank / Gaza. Both Republicans and Democrats complained mightily, but since Egypt and Syria had already changed into Islamic dictatorships with the other Islamic countries being close to that, and Israel had built-out the West Bank, the arrangement worked out well," continued Naiflass.

"On the subject of Australia's reaction to Japan's use of a nuclear weapon, you probably heard that the Australian navy is preventing any Japanese whaling ships from hunting for whales," offered Darcy.

"Yes, I was told by the Prime Minister that Australian navy ships give whalers a choice: turn around and head back to port or prepare to be fired upon. From what I understand, the first few ships needed a few blasts from a .50 caliber machine gun before taking the threat seriously, but now whalers have essentially given up," continued Naiflass.

"Yes, and most Australians are ecstatic over this, especially given that some of the nuclear fallout rained over Australia. I will bet you do not know what happened near Taijii in the cove Japan has been using to kill 20,000 dolphins each year. Someone, almost certainly an Australian, determined the audible frequency most hated by dolphins and created a waterproof transmitter device to radiate that frequency. This device was placed in the very end of the cove. Dolphins rapidly moved away from the end of the cove. This person then moved the device, or threw in another one, further down the cove, doing this until there were no more dolphins at all in the cove. Now we have learned that this same person makes sure that the device is always transmitting, probably simply by replacing the batteries. The slaughter is finally concluded," finished Darcy.

A blood-curdling scream was heard coming from the salon next door. Darcy and Munro's eyes went wide, but Naiflass hardly reacted at all, as she had heard it before.

"We have not discussed the specifics of the USA. There was no war, but the USA essentially became a third-world country," interjected Munro.

"Oh, the States -- what a complicated story of riches to rags!" declared Naiflass.

"As I alluded to earlier, America was living week-to-week, budget-wise. The Republicans had passed drastic tax cuts with no expiration date. They tried to eliminate Social Security and Medicare, but the uproar was so great that they were forced to back off. They fully funded the F-48 program, with each aircraft estimated to cost $500 million each, but they were built before the fuel leak and electronics problems were solved, so cost over-runs doubled the price. The debt just kept rising, eventually reaching 300% of GDP, with both parties blaming each other. They borrowed more and more from China," continued Naiflass.

"And then the bottom dropped out of the debt market because China was out of commission due to the nuclear strike. China was unable to provide for its own people, let alone prop-up American spendthrifts. So the U.S. defaulted on its debt and allowed its infrastructure to fall apart, not that it was well-maintained before the crisis," added Naiflass.

"Americans had shot themselves in the foot with respect to consumer goods. They seemed to believe that low prices were their birthright, even though the Chinese-made goods were often of rock-bottom quality. So when the Chinese factories closed suddenly, there were no Chinese imports anymore. And because American factories had long since been shuttered, there was no way to quickly make up the shortfall. Sure, capitalists started opening factories in other foreign countries -- I guess they just couldn't face lowering their stratospheric personal income enough to open factories in the States -- but the ramp-up took months for easily made goods and much longer for more complicated ones like computer parts," continued Naiflass.

"And then fracking was revealed to be a permanent hazard to human health," interjected Munro.

"As the Americans are prone to saying, that's gotta hurt!" confirmed Naiflass. "Yes, fracking was finally proven to contaminate aquifers. The largest one, the Ogallala Aquifer, is now useless. Farmers and cities were draining it anyway, causing the water level to drop each year, but now it is filled with the chemicals used by fracking drillers. The chemicals are similar to MTBE in that they insidiously move throughout the aquifer. And given that radium is naturally present in the shales that house natural gas, when that fluid is extracted -- 10-40% of the fluid is brought back up -- it contains a large amount of radium, a substance which water filtration plants are not designed for, and neither do they remove it, so it is simply dumped into local streams or injected back into the aquifer."

"Nebraska, the Oklahoma Panhandle, northern Texas, the western half of Kansas, eastern Colorado, eastern New Mexico, southeastern Wyoming, and southern South Dakota have largely been abandoned. And North Dakota, scene of massive fracking in the rush to make the States energy independent, is a wasteland, not that it was much to look at before. Millions of people were forced to move away from their farms and homes because water is a scarce commodity in the region. Only cities lying on rivers, for example, Omaha and Kansas City on the Missouri River, remain, because they can take their water directly from the river. Given that the area held much of America's wheat crop, as well as other crops, the States are now having severe food shortages, something which was unthinkable just a few years ago," continued Naiflass.

"The U.S. is in uncharted territory. Scientists can only guess when the Ogallala Aquifer will be usable again. Remember that it was originally filled mainly by melting glaciers thousands of years ago at the end of the last ice age. Some of the Midwestern states devised a brilliant plan, all things considered. They brought in buffalo, antelope and a few other native animals to repopulate the region. It will take decades to bring back the herds North America had before Buffalo Bill -- who got his name by shooting buffalo while sitting comfortably on a train car -- and others eliminated them. Too bad rhinos and elephants couldn't be brought in to live free from poachers, as they are just a blink away from being extinct due to Chinese, Vietnamese, and other Asian men killing them for their horns, but they would never survive the winters," added Naiflass.

"Speaking of food shortages, you probably know that Europe banned neonicotinoid pesticides because it was finally understood that the collapse of bee colonies was due to these pesticides damaging the brains of bees, especially queens. Slowly, Europe's fruit and vegetable output rose, so it was reasonable to assume that the pesticides were indeed the problem. But American politicians were having none of that. They reminded me of the people who ignorantly claimed that vaccines caused autism, even though there have been many, many studies that disproved the original one created by that charlatan, who, I'm sorry to admit, was British. The bee population collapsed in the States and millions of people discovered the hard way the reality of how fruits and vegetables are pollinated," continued Naiflass.

"What about the many strange personalities seen in the USA over the past decade?" asked Darcy.

"California used to be known as the land of fruits, nuts, and flakes, but now it appears that much of the country is deserving of that moniker. A good example on the left is Spurious Yakitiyak, writer for Connected Magazine, who, along with a few other people, convinced the Golfhound administration to stop investigating domestic Islamic terrorists on the grounds that it might hurt their feelings. Yakitiyak often proposed that liberals randomly pick conservatives and call them racists to politically taint them. Like his fellow American liberals, Yakitiyak always acts in a condescending manner towards people who do not share his every belief, no matter how politically-correct or narrow. Amazingly, liberals appear to be shocked when they learn that the rest of the country despises them," continued Naiflass.

"And on the right, there is Permed Yeller. She is known for two mutually contradictory beliefs. The first is that Islam is a threat to Western civilization and must be severely limited. The second is a sycophantic infatuation with Ayn Rand, the high priestess of self-centered and greedy people. She was spot on regarding the dangers of Islam, but she must never have actually read any of Rand's books because she would have quickly learned that Rand advocated for unlimited immigration and the bare minimum of government. Yeller and her associates paid for advertising and published materials which espoused a ban on further immigration by Muslims -- a ban which could only have been implemented by the federal government Rand hated -- but in truth Rand would have dismissed her as a distinct inferior," opined Naiflass.

"The so-called 'gang of eight' Senators ripped the heart out of the American technical worker with its opening of the immigration floodgates via increased numbers of H-1B and L-1 visa holders. These men said with a straight face that allowing hundreds of thousands more foreign workers would somehow improve the unemployment situation. And, Bob's your uncle, it put hundreds of thousands more Americans out of work. And those foreign workers, mainly from India, then made matters worse by hiring only their friends and relatives for new positions. They took further advantage of the situation by using B-1 visas, which are supposed to be used only for someone visiting the States for a meeting or conference, to bring in permanent workers," continued Naiflass.

"That was the impetus for the rise of the 'homeless hackers,' right?" asked Munro.

"Yes," responded Naiflass. "The government persisted with its transparent charade of cooking the
books with respect to unemployment data, simply dropping 500,000 or so
people from the ranks of the workforce each month because the government no longer considered them worthy of consideration. If the actual
unemployment figure were calculated, I wager it would easily top 30%,
with many of the others barely surviving on multiple part-time jobs."

"All of these unemployed technical workers, mainly older ones with skills that were not current, were laid-off because their employers could hire cheaper, younger, foreign employees via H-1B and L-1 visas. I never understood why the American government did not require companies to simply upgrade the skill sets of older workers. Many of these older workers eventually became homeless or ended up in someone's basement or back room. I still do not know if it was organized or just happened, but many of these older workers taught themselves how to hack through firewalls and into the IT systems of companies responsible for eliminating American jobs, especially Microsoft, HP, and GE. At first, the hacking was purely malicious, causing web sites to crash or internal databases to become corrupted. The hackers would seek out unprotected wireless networks, in a process called war-driving, and use that network, residential or commercial, as a springboard to hack into the target. But then they realized there was money to be made, so they worked out arrangements with hackers in other countries, especially Russia, to transfer assets from American companies to Russian banks, where the loot would be split among member of the group. I have been informed by reliable sources that Russian President Rasputin himself approved of the arrangements with Russian banks. I expect this will continue indefinitely because the U.S. Congress refuses to re-regulate banks," continued Naiflass.

"What of the large number of domestic bombings in the USA? Do you think authorities will ever get a handle on them?" asked Darcy.

"In a word, no," responded Naiflass. "The U.S. is now 50% poverty and 50% anarchy."

"There are mainly two types of bombers: Muslims and the social media generation. Muslims explode suicide-style backpacks, homicide-style backpacks, bombs in cars, and suicide vests worn by men dressed in full-body Islamic costumes. The social media generation consists of psychopaths like the school shooters, possibly after their minds snapped as a result of playing too many violent video games. Occasionally, right-wingers explode bombs as a result of their perception that Islamists are not being held accountable for their actions. At first, we only saw them at large events like marathons and city fairs. Then we saw them at Thanksgiving Day sales, where hundreds of people with more money than sense would mob the entrance of Walmart or another store importing foreign goods. But then the bombers graduated to smaller venues, for example, markets and movie theaters. People have mostly stopped attending public functions, putting yet another nail in the coffin of the American economy. The FBI is overwhelmed because of the budget shortfall, so some bombings are not investigated as thoroughly as they would have in the past. In the past, America was described as a melting pot, but now it is a free-for-all," added Naiflass.

"Yes, of course, similar to what we used to see with radio-controlled model airplanes," answered Naiflass. "First, we only saw drones being used to spy on people living in high-rise apartments, but then psychopaths realized that taking a stick of dynamite, coating it with glue, attaching nuts and bolts to it, and mounting it on the bottom of their drone would be the Jerry Springer generation's equivalent of Nazi buzz bombs. Outdoor stadiums are a thing of the past because stopping these drones is almost impossible. All NFL and college stadiums which were open-air have now been reconstructed to add a roof, at a tremendous cost, it goes without saying."

"And what has always struck me as both typically American and simply bizarre are the groupies of the bombers. One of them will be arrested, his photos will be displayed on the telly and on the Internet, and an uncomfortable number of people will comment that the bomber is highly attractive, as if this was merely another episode of The Bachelor," opined Naiflass.

"Or just as bonkers are the people of dubious intelligence who claim that a bomber who was caught in the act was actually only an innocent victim of a government false flag operation. There are so many of these people in the country, who genuinely believe that the moon landings and 9/11 attacks were faked and that lizard-people control politics, well, it is no wonder tourists are as scarce as hen's teeth outside of the national parks," declared Naiflass.

"But that's what you get from a country where the latest trend is to wear Glass to bed, using it to change the virtual appearance of the wearer's sex partner. Some of these clowns -- the derogatory term for them is Glassholes -- set their Glass to depict larger genitalia or breasts than are actually present, causing the person to grab for something which does not exist!" joked Naiflass.

"Other people are having malicious fun with Glass. It seems that hackers have figured out how to change the video being displayed on a user's glasses. The hackers watch what the wearer is seeing in real life and then change it for maximum shock value. If the wearer is in the vicinity of a police officer, the hackers suddenly show part of a slasher movie, causing the wearer to scream, with the police officer then investigating whether the wearer needs to be institutionalized. I read that hackers have automated the process, using face and/or uniform recognition, so no Glass wearer is immune," mused Naiflass.

"And the fact that we now have a full cure for HIV/AIDS has resulted in San Francisco taking a big step backwards with its gay policies, as the gay mayor announced that he will not enforce any law restricting public sex. The bath houses where anything, and I mean anything, goes have returned. Now that gays no longer fear HIV/AIDS, the bad old days of unfettered sex have returned," declared Naiflass.

"On America's southern border, Mexico is experiencing a full-blown civil war. Many Americans do not seem to be aware of the origin of most of the weapons the cartels use. Back in the 1980s, the Reagan administration shipped large quantities of machine guns, grenades, and other tools of war to Central America in a misguided effort to fight communism. These weapons were eventually sold to the cartels. And more recently, we saw the operation called Fast and Furious, in which the U.S. government actually allowed cases of AK-style and AR-15 rifles to be sold to Mexican cartels in a bizarre plan to track them through the morass. Not surprisingly, many of the weapons were not tracked and some were even used to kill U.S. government agents. I think it would require an invasion by a well-equipped army to quell the many battles," continued Naiflass.

Another blood-curdling scream was heard coming from the salon next door, but this time Darcy and Munro merely looked uncomfortable.

"What about Europe? There were no nuclear explosions, but the continent went through radical changes," asked Munro.

"Europe is complicated," started Naiflass. "Portugal and Spain became communist. Hungary is in a half-war with Slovakia over the treatment of ethnic Hungarians in Slovakia and vice versa. The corruption in Bulgaria and Romania has always boggled the mind, especially the former with its ties to Russia. At least we had the foresight to never allow them to join the Schengen Area. If Romania could only have found a way to eliminate its culture of corruption, it would have become a major player in Europe."

"Greece became fascist, never coming to terms with its wealthy being allowed to avoid taxes. Greek ship owners had been allowed to avoid paying any taxes for decades. Patients in hospitals must supply their own bandages, towels, and drugs, with their relatives being asked to care for them because nurses are in short supply. This situation in hospitals is the same as we saw around the fall of the Soviet Union and thereafter," continued Naiflass.

"Northern Italy is an eclectic mix of fascism and communism, with the southern half and Sicily being pure mafia. The antics of the on-again, off-again -- this does not only refer to political office, but also to teen-aged girls as young as 13 -- Prime Minister Smegma Phallusconi, are almost entertaining, proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that the average Italian voter has less than average intelligence," opined Naiflass.

"Residents of Germany, Poland, the Baltic States, Finland, the Netherlands, and Austria, countries which actually paid their taxes,
revolted and elected new governments,
declaring that they could not see how communist, fascist, at-war, or Islamic
countries could remain in the EU. Border controls were
reimplemented, with the Schengen Agreement being only a distant memory. I think we will see a new collection of countries very soon, perhaps called the Hanseatic League, echoing the organization of the same name of the 13th to 17th centuries, only this time I think Switzerland and Liechtenstein will join, as well as the Flemish portion of former Belgium after the split is finalized. France may join now that it has solidified after the many attacks on Jewish people," finished Naiflass.

"One of the few countries which actually improved its situation is Russia. After China was knocked out of the cyber-theft arena, Russia moved to take advantage of the vacuum. Russian President Rasputin organized the tens of thousands of Russian cyber-criminals living in Russia and outside, especially Latvia, Estonia, Ukraine, Belarus, Transnistria, and the States. No longer were their activities restricted to robbing American companies. It became an organized effort to pillage the coffers of businesses around the world. The States remained a top target, but Europe was number two on the hit list. When European countries protested, Rasputin used his usual bludgeon, threatening to close the pipelines carrying Russian oil and gas to the continent. Germany came to bitterly regret its decision to shutter its nuclear power plants. France was one of the few countries to withstand the Russian onslaught, given its heavy reliance on nuclear power. Winters in the Baltic States, Poland, and few other countries which were occupied by the Soviet Union for fifty-odd years are frigid and dreary, except for the eastern portions of Latvia and Estonia -- the Russian zone -- which still have plentiful oil and gas," added Naiflass.

"You two are probably not very familiar with the Sami, the native people historically residing in the northern portions of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia, but they were caught up in the Islamic takeover of Norway. The Sami were allowed by law to migrate from the coast to further inland with their reindeer herds, but Muslims soon decided that the Sami owed them jizya, the tax on non-believers, payable in reindeer. The Sami refused and that's when the trouble started. Muslims started stealing reindeer, and occasionally Sami girls to serve in Oslo harems or worse. The Sami fought back with rifles, with Finland coming to their aid with its military. At first, Sweden played its usual neutral game, which meant it allowed Muslims to kidnap Sami women on Swedish soil, but it soon became clear that Sweden and Finland were either going to work together or go to war. Sweden chose the former and closed its border to Muslims, as did Finland," continued Naiflass.

"Norway had never been a member of the EU. It had treated the Sami poorly in the past. As a matter of fact, in the first half of the 20th Century, Norway actively tried to eliminate Sami culture and force them into being Norwegian, very similar to how Japan tried to eliminate Korean language and culture after it annexed Korea in 1910. This attitude persisted in Norway, and when mixed with Islamic intolerance, made it easy for Norway to discriminate against the Sami once again," added Naiflass.

"It took a while for the news to emerge, but Muslims had been creating harems and bordellos in Oslo, with the latter being filled with non-Muslim slaves. The Koran is full of justifications of slavery by the Muslim prophet Muhammad, so the practice of kidnapping non-Muslim women to serve as sex slaves goes way back, to the 600s," continued Naiflass.

"Is that why Norway was kicked out of NATO?" queried Darcy as she adjusted the headscarf which was mandatory for all women in Britain.

"Certainly," answered Naiflass. "Having a member kidnap residents of another country is not something NATO could tolerate."

"You said before that Norway should have executed Beavis. In a similar manner, don't you think the UK should have deported its many Islamic criminals and terrorists?" asked Munro.

"Hindsight is always 20-20. Yes, we should have deported Muhammed al Childmolester, Muhammed al Rapist, Muhammed al Tubebomber, Muhammed al Busbomber, Muhammed al Childgroomer, Muhammed al Violentimam, and the others who remained solely because Britain did not have the courage to deport criminals in opposition to rulings of the EU Court of Human Rights. I dare say Churchill would have found a way to rid our island of vermin like them," continued Naiflass.

"But we found the time to ban that American preacher who burned copies of the Koran and the Dutch politician who wanted to stop immigration of Muslims. They were controversial, to be sure, but they never espoused murder, let alone committed it," opined Naiflass

"Because of the backlash against austerity, the Tories and Lib Dems were thrown out of office, with Labor coming back under yours truly. I will admit that I did not see the danger in copying Norway's policy with respect to sharia. We had already allowed separate sharia courts, but those only affected Muslims. We changed the law so sharia was on equal footing with the great tradition of English law going back centuries. We allowed ourselves to be shamed into believing that we were Islamophobic," admitted Naiflass.

"A country cannot exist under two mutually-contradictory systems of law," declared Naiflass.

"Do you think BBC News was a major player in the UK turning into an Islamic country?" asked Darcy.

"Yes, that is certainly true," answered Naiflass. "Jimmy Savile and Stuart Hall were world-class rapists and child molesters -- and there were many others. Given the atmosphere of fear resulting from sexual harassment and bullying by 'untouchable' senior managers and stars, BBC News became a place where the natural horror regarding rape and molestation became desensitized, so when Muslim gangs started grooming girls for sex, BBC never sounded the alarm. The culture at BBC News was so tainted that even when someone made a complaint of sexual harassment, and that complaint was upheld, the perpetrator was often promoted shortly thereafter. We never heard of this because all BBC News contracts included a gag order preventing employees from ever discussing the problem in public."

"And the typical British disdain for the French was mixed in, too. I remember hearing some of the BBC News almost-stars, the ones who were heard on the American NPR, for example, who haughtily denigrated France's banning of the burka, sneering that it is rare in France. This was both true and irrelevant, because France was trying to ban the full-body suits which masked whether the wearer was a man or woman, with these costumes being called burkas, nikabs, and other names," continued Naiflass. "History has proven that France and Belgium were right to ban these outfits."

"Why were imams in British mosques allowed to teach a virulent and jihadist form of Islam?" asked Munro.

"Over the past few decades, many, many mosques have been built in the UK. Of those mosques, at least 80% were teaching the most radical types of Islam, Wahhabism and Salafism, teaching jihad, Islamic supremacism, and hatred and contempt for Jews and Christians. Often these mosques were not proposed as such, but were disingenuously introduced as a community center, inter-faith center, or another innocuous term. Little by little, Britain was being inundated by dangerous, religious nutters. The stage was being set for the final act," continued Naiflass.

"We naively thought that Justa Chowderhead, the Muslim demagogue, was just blowing smoke when he proclaimed years ago that the Queen would eventually be wearing a headscarf. It's even more amazing given that Chowderhead was a party animal in his college days, drinking heavily, taking drugs, and fornicating with non-Muslim women. Of course, now he is a self-righteous Muslim dictator. He must have studied the history of Germany leading up to WWII because he and his followers used Nazi tactics to gain power, strong-arming people to get his way. We saw the use of Islamic stormtroopers standing outside the businesses of people who tried to stand up to the categorization of non-Muslims as inferior to Muslims, holding signs informing potential customers that the business must not be patronized," added Naiflass.

"The writing was on the wall, but we were too blind to read it. When Muslims clashed with Jews, many people on the left dismissed it as the usual Zionism. When Muslims clashed with Christians, many people on the left dismissed it as the legacy of the past, for example, the Spanish Inquisition and other Catholic excesses. But when Muslims clashed with pacifist Buddhists, we really should have awoken from our politically-correct slumber. The signs held by Buddhists reading 'The world is not only for Muslims' should have been our canary in the coal mine, a clear signal that Muslims were attempting to dominate the entire world, with any other religion being something which needed to be eradicated," continued Naiflass.

"Luckily, this was not true in all other European countries. The last straw was the claim by Muslims that any criticism of Muhammad was not acceptable. It does not require a barrister to understand that prohibiting criticism of Muhammad is a slippery slope. Once that law is in effect, Muslims can claim just about anything. Since Muhammad had multiple wives, polygamy must be legalized. Since Muhammad married a girl who was only 6 or 7, that must be made legal. Since he proclaimed that non-Muslim girls and women can be enslaved for sex, that must be legalized. Since Muhammad declared that alcohol is forbidden, shops selling alcohol can be forced to close. Since Muhammad declared that dogs are unclean, dog owners can be forced to avoid areas which Muslims frequent, which eventually will be everywhere. Freedom of speech, religion, and behavior go out the window under sharia," declared Naiflass.

"In a few European countries, the roundup for Islamic extremists has already begun. Cartoons insulting to Muhammad are published and when the predictable demonstration against them is seen, the demonstrators are corralled and prevented from leaving by heavily armed police. Each member of the crowd is interviewed one by one, with visitors and others lacking permanent status deported within two days. Permanent residents are fingerprinted, photographed, and warned that they are now in the database," continued Naiflass.

"Why wasn't the Defence of Britain Party more of a factor in preventing the UK from turning Islamic?" queried Darcy.

"Unfortunately, we in the government largely prevented that," admitted Naiflass. "As with liberals in the States, we foolishly trumpeted Islamophobia as the greater threat. We arrested many of the leaders of the DBP, harassing them and preventing them from contributing to the discussion as to whether Islam was compatible with traditional British values. Using state-sponsored honeytraps, spies, and entrapment, often with the assistance of MI5 and the Guardian, we damaged the reputation of the DBP beyond repair. That said, the DBP added to its own downfall by demanding that Britain isolate itself from the Continent. France and Belgium, and later Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Finland, and other countries, banned the face veil, that blatant symbol of Islamic oppression of women, while Britain never did. We could have learned something from them."

"We never appreciated that Islamists were exactly the same as Bolsheviks in terms of fanaticism. They would stop at nothing and were willing to kill large numbers of people to achieve their goal of worldwide Islam. And in a manner reminiscent of how Stalin eliminated the Trotskyites and other opposition groups, the two main Islamic sects, Sunni and Shia, fought a never-ending civil war over whose version of Islam would triumph," opined Naiflass.

"There is some good news in the world, however. Your two countries, Australia and Canada, as well as Germany, are now sanctuary countries for people fleeing Islamic and other oppression. I find it satisfyingly ironic that Germany, the country which was responsible for killing approximately six million Jews during WWII, is now a sanctuary country for Jews and other religious groups. This is hardly the time or place for this sentiment, but a paraphrased line from The Clash's song London Calling just struck me: phony Islamophobia has bitten the dust!" declared Naiflass.

The prime minister's personal assistant entered the lavatory. "Madame Prime Minister, it is time," she said without emotion.

"I must admit, I was never very religious," Naiflass said with an almost imperceptible, sad sigh. "After I read the story in Revelation of how Satan was sent down to Earth after losing the battle with Archangel Michael, I realized that God must not be very powerful if he cannot handle his former employees. Dante's Inferno described Satan as residing in the ninth circle of Hell, with his lower body frozen in ice. But recently I have become to believe that the legend is true, but not in the way it is presented to us. Muhammad is Satan. He was sent to Earth to inject his malignancy into as many people as he possibly could. He brilliantly wrote the Koran, the most deceptively evil book ever written, which has influenced billions and has been directly responsible for tens if not hundreds of millions of deaths since the 600s. And the 40% of Muslims who believe that suicide bombings are justified when 'defending Islam' must not understand that their god is therefore an invalid, incapable of defending it himself."

Naiflass stood and composed herself. "I would say 'See you later,' but that would be unrealistic. Goodbye," she concluded.

"Thank you so much for speaking with us today. Goodbye," responded Darcy as she donned a full face veil.

"Yes, thank you very much. Goodbye," added Munro as she too donned a full face veil. Both journalists wanted to make their escape from occupied Britain as quickly and safely as possible.

Naiflass turned and walked out of the lavatory into the salon. For the first time she saw the long knife being wielded by a husky bearded man in preparation for her ritual beheading. As he turned to face her, he accidentally kicked a wicker basket, causing it to overturn and spill its contents of the heads of senior managers from BBC News and the Guardian. The necks of the heads were ragged because their former owners were not decapitated in a quick, humane fashion; the heads were sawed off as one would saw a slice from a freshly-baked loaf of bread.

She hoped she could be as brave as her heroine, Sophie Scholl of the White Rose.

About Me

TheSaucyMugwump is my nom de guerre and one I would change if I started again. Saucy comes from a song by Steeleye Span, Saucy Sailor. The Mugwumps were former Republicans who supported the Democrats in 1884 due to financial corruption associated with the Republicans. I have traveled all over Europe, from London to Eisenach to St. Petersburg, with this travel giving me a completely different point of view, allowing me to understand that identity-politics liberals and the rabid Tea Party have combined to doom the U.S. to a politically-correct mediocrity where self-centered greed reigns supreme. A completely unrealistic daydream of mine is that somehow I will be invited to be an adviser to assist North Korea reform its nightmare country, with this daydream playing a part in many of my blog posts. I studied Russian and German, but I have forgotten most of it due to disuse. I write this blog because it is the only way for me to keep my writing skills current, as the USA is rapidly becoming a below-average country run by multinational corporations and Wall Street and populated by texting and Glassing children. The photo of a wooden floor was taken in Schloss Celle in Germany.